Frequently Asked Questions

Catznip Frequently Asked Questions

To join or open the Catznip Viewer group from in the viewer, top menu click Help > Catznip Support Group. You can also paste the following in chat in the viewer and click the link that appears.

secondlife:///app/group/0ca3355c-c72c-4db5-d2e2-79127a134d55/about

Where is the _______ in Catznip ?

From time to time, someone will ask in our support group "Where is the _____ in Catznip?", typically these questions come from those switching to us from another TPV and missing familiar features. I'm going to attempt to cover a few common ones and our reasons behind our thinking to date.

Area Search

I will start by saying we will not add a feature just so you can cheat at hunts, seriously ಠ_ಠ.

Still here? Then maybe you're one of the few users who has a legitimate use for a local area object search. We recognise this need and assuming we can do something in a way that doesn't hammer the region you're standing on, we will. It is unlikely any such feature would let you search for arbitrary prims in arbitrary locations.

Built in AO

More often than not refers to the viewer side AO from Firestorm and is something we're honestly on the fence with.

Personally, I change the animation sets I use frequently depending on outfit, mood, role or location. It's body language for your avatar and very contextual. Being able to have Animations linked to outfits via a worn object is a distinct advantage and saves me from remembering that right now I should be perceived as Aggressive or Shy or whatever.

Attachment based AO's can do things a viewer based AO can't. Double jumps, movement boosts or anything that depends on attachment to attachment communication. Say, a Collar that stops your AO before setting your avatar in a certain pose.

Emulating these features in a viewer AO would require a scripted worn attachment (like the bridge in Firestorm, which as ideas go, we really really don't like).

This is just the tip of the iceberg and why we have been hotly debating this internally for almost as long as we have been doing Catznip. We absolutely don't want to add half a feature or something that isn't at least as good.

Update There is talk of a region based AO system, a whole new 'done right' way to handle animations .. watch this space.

Empty Lost and Found

This is a standard LL feature we removed. Why? Anything that ends up in your lost and found folder got there without your interaction; A short cut to use it like a second Trash is kind of begging for accidental inventory loss. Less 'oops' is a good thing.

Hide my Lookat

For easy drama, hide the anchor point of your viewer camera and then start paying attention to everyone else's.

Bottom line is it's no one's business where your camera is anchored (and this is also the opinion of Linden Lab).

If someone complains about you staring at them, say "I'm free to put my camera anywhere I choose, if you don't wish to be seen, maybe you shouldn't be here."; If the problem persists, block them and continue your day one less idiot in your world.

The anchor point is not an indicator of where a person may actually be looking. So while there is a way in Catznip to show the cross hairs, there will never be names attached because we're not going to enable this kind of nonsense.

Unrestricted Zoom Out

When combined with 'Hide my Lookat' above, this allows someone to stand on the region floor and cam into a skybox 2000M up without giving the occupants any indication they are being watched. There is a word for people who partake in that kind of behaviour.

Object Script Count

Did you know that the number of scripts has nothing to do with anything, that script memory isn't handled how in world script counters show you and that the number of scripts alone can't cause lag.

There was a performance bug about a year ago where a LOT of scripts would cause problems when someone landed on a region, That was a bug and LL fixed it. But you know .. drama.

Teleport To

Being able to teleport directly to any local avatar, anywhere, and without permission breaches that individuals privacy. If that person wishes they can already make it so you can map them. Failing that, you can always just ask for a TP.

Feature from TPV viewer X

There are two basic rules to being a good TPV neighbour. 1: don't publish someone else's work in your viewer before the actual authors have released it their own. 2: Code in viewer dev for Linden Lab (like the mesh deformer) are off limits, see rule 1 and the TPV agreement.

To sum up, just yanking features from other viewers is easy and for us, completely defeats the point. You would end up with a viewer that aside from branding and colour scheme would be more or less like every other TPV. We are also strongly against adding features that depend on hacks (that is building one feature via unintended use of another) and anything that makes it easier to breach your privacy.

Think of a TPV as a test bed for experimental work, the best of which will end up being contributed to Linden Lab and everyone will benefit In the mean time, variety is awesome. (Also.. there are only two of us and we do like to do other things from time to time .. occasionally ...)

Open Simulator Support

As of Catznip R8.1, there is no version of Catznip that is suitable for use with Opensim regions. There are now multiple technical and licensing reasons for this lack of support, the biggest is that we simply do not have time to maintain two separate viewers with an ever diverging feature set. For a good open sim viewer we recommend you see the Opensim Wiki.

Do you have an Apple OS X version?

Yes and from what we hear, it's the best performing OSX Second Life viewer. See the Latest Release page.

Can I get a beta or test version?

We are always looking to expand our beta test team! However this is NOT the place to come looking for the latest feature complete version of the viewer (See our Latest Release). If you're feeling brave and are prepared to follow instructions and jump through some hoops to help out, see our Beta Testers Page.